Judge Craig Smith of Dallas on May 10 signed an order denying Houston trial lawyer Robert S. Bennett’s request for mediation before a hearing to decide what sanctions should be imposed on Bennett in his disciplinary suit. The Commission for Lawyer Discipline opposed the request, alleging Bennett asked for mediation simply to delay the sanction hearing.

“By the time that a mediation is scheduled and held, and then a sanction hearing is scheduled and held, respondent will have been able to practice law for additional months before a sanction is imposed for his professional misconduct,” the Commission for Lawyer Discipline argued in a response filed on May 9 in the latest development in the highly watched disciplinary suit.

Bennett, who was disbarred in March 2014, started practicing law again in March 2016 after a Houston appeals court reversed a trial court’s sanction disbarring Bennett and remanded it for reconsideration of the “appropriate sanction.”